A conventional gas or electric oven is subject to collecting deposits from whatever is placed in the oven to be cooked. Modern ovens are designed to self-clean upon demand by reducing these deposits to dust with high heat. This cleaning method is commonly known as pyrolytic cleaning. The high temperature used for pyrolytic cleaning poses a hazard if the oven door is opened during the cleaning cycle. To prevent this, an oven door lock is employed.
Many types of oven door locks have been provided that lock the oven door for a period sufficient to complete a pyrolytic cleaning cycle once initiated. Many of these door locks use electrical motors, electromechanical devices or manual manipulation of mechanisms to move a latch to a position in which the latch prevents the oven door from being opened during a self-cleaning cycle. Examples of such locks are disclosed in Phillips, U.S. Pat. No. 6,079,756; Thuleen et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,082,078; McWilliams, III, U.S. Pat. No. 5,493,099; Smith, U.S. Pat. No. 6,302,098; Swartzell, U.S. Pat. No. 6,315,336; and Malone et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,220,153.
The oven lock mechanisms in these and other known locks use complicated mechanical arrangements to move a latch member between a latched and an unlatched position. These mechanisms include springs and irregularly shaped guide slots to manipulate the latch movement between the latched and unlatched positions. The springs present issues of reliability as the spring metal material is subjected to repeated extensions and contractions over its life as well as temperature extremes. The irregular guide slots lead to variations during metal stamping of the plates that may make the latch operations differ from lock to lock. Quality control tolerances may need tightening to address these variations, but that response leads to an increased part rejection rate and added expense to the manufacturing process.